On August 18, a representative of the Ministry of Transport said that the agency had just approved the adjustment of the planning of Con Dao Airport until 2030. The airport will be used jointly by the military and civil sectors, with a capacity of 2 million passengers and 4,400 tons of cargo per year, and can handle code C aircraft (Airbus A320, A321) or equivalent, with 8 aircraft parking positions.
To serve large aircraft, the runway will be upgraded and expanded to 1,830 m x 45 m, with each side 7.5 m wide; three taxiways will be built connecting the runway to the parallel taxiway and the apron.
A new air traffic control tower was built to the east of the passenger terminal. The airport was equipped with an automatic runway intrusion warning system, multi-point surveillance, weather radar, bird detection and repelling equipment, etc. The passenger terminal was planned to be newly built to accommodate two million passengers per year, with land reserved for expansion to the east.
The total land use demand of Con Dao airport is about 181 hectares, including 104 hectares of existing airport land area and an additional land area of about 76 hectares. Of which, 32 hectares are reserved for runway extension when needed.
Con Dao Airport currently has a designed capacity of 500,000 passengers per year, and in recent years has achieved a growth rate of more than 20%. In 2020, the airport transported 447,750 passengers, an increase of 4% compared to 2019 despite the complicated epidemic. Currently, Con Dao Airport can only operate small aircraft such as ATR-72 and equivalent, so it limits tourists and ticket prices are always high.
